Beaver Lake — Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023

The salmon are spawning and easy to see on this little hike! This is a hike about the journey, as the destination has been cut off by a broken bridge, you can no longer get to all the ponds and to the nice lunch log by the water. Nursing 2 broken toes, I needed an easy flat hike, knew the Ice Caves would be mobbed, so opted for this. Great fall color today and only 4 other people on trail. We could smell the rotting fish all along the trail by the river, so we were hoping to see live spawning fish. We were able to get a good look just after the little switchback as the trail goes down right to the river about a mile in. We could hear them splashing and see them swimming upstream, we were thrilled! They look black in the water, not the silver or red you would expect. The trail does not see a lot of maintenance so is a bit rough in spots. There are 2 large logs down with a wedge cut for your foot and a handhold, some mud and one little wet rocky downhill spot. The end is anticlimactic, the ponds under the bridge are dried up and the couple with water still you can only glimpse from the end. This would be such a nice hike option off the MLH if the bridge could be repaired. Yeah I know, no budget, sad. The Loop is paved to the TH from Darrington, loo in good shape.